Pacific Affairs Special Issue: Celling South Asia: The Mobile Phone's Impact on a Region

Robin Jeffery, Assa Doron

    Research output: Contribution to journalEditorialpeer-review

    Abstract

    This article scans the effects of mobile-phone communication, particularly in South Asia. It focuses on three important areas: political economy, politics and social practices. By 2012 India had more than 900 million telephone subscribers, 96 percent of them on cell phones, and the majority of users were the poor. At the other end of the social scale, the mobile phone provoked bitter struggles among some of India's biggest business houses and branches of government, and was responsible for criminal cases against politicians at the highest level. The essays in this volume are a reminder that technology is anything but neutral. The essays examine the many facets of mobile phone communication and the institutions, agents, mechanisms and networks such communication relies on. The essays contribute to efforts to interpret the effects of this technology and to gain insight into the most important aspect of the mobile phone: the sheer variety of activity (political, social and cultural) on which it impinges.
    Original languageEnglish
    JournalPacific Affairs
    Volume85
    Issue number3
    Publication statusPublished - 2012

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